Friday, July 3, 2026

Hippos, orcas and other animals attacking movie protagonists


Sharks aren’t the only killer animals on the prowl on movie screens this year. There are also killer hippos, orcas, spiders and snakes at the cinema.
“Hungry,” released in late June, features a rampaging, killer hippopotamus in the Louisiana bayou. Reviews from critics have been mixed, but these types of movies are made for fans of the genre not high-brow snobs.
Coming this fall is the killer orca movie “Black Tides,” starring John Travolta. It is directed by Renny Harlin, who also directed the recent shark-attack movie “Deep Water.”
Due out on Oct. 2 is “Beware Boiúna,” which is about a legendary killer snake in the Amazon rainforest. In Brazilian folklore, the Boiúna (which translates to "Black Snake") is a massive, menacing river serpent.
Also due in October is the movie “Whalefall,” starring Josh Brolin. It involves a scuba diver swallowed by an 80-foot, 60-ton sperm whale.
October will also see the release of “Crawlers.” Here’s the synopsis: Quarantined residents of an infested apartment complex find themselves in a fight for their lives against deadly, venomous spiders rapidly spreading throughout the building.

Related article:

Shark-attack movies are getting more ridiculous (June 30, 2026)

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Shark-attack movies are getting more ridiculous


It wouldn’t be summer cinema without shark-attack movies. But some of the new movies are playing more for laughs than scares.
“Water Park Shark” is a B-movie horror comedy from Anthony C. Ferrante – the director behind the famously ridiculous “Sharknado” franchise. The plot involves great white sharks breaching a water park in Cape Cod, Mass. It’s due out on July 3 on Amazon Prime Video.
“Sorority Shark Attack” reportedly is set for a streaming video release later this year. It features Robert Carradine (“Revenge of the Nerds”) in one of his final film roles before his death in February.
“Thrash,” which premiered April 10 on Netflix, also generated as many laughs as scares. The plot has a pack of hungry bull sharks invading a flooded coastal town in South Carolina during a hurricane. To make matters worse, the initial storm surge breaks open a massive commercial tanker truck carrying animal blood.
Here’s the plot of “Chum,” released on June 5: “A newlywed couple joins friends on a Mediterranean yacht excursion, only to find themselves caught between a predatory shark and a psychopathic killer in their midst – transforming a sun-drenched escape into a fight for survival.”
“Chum,” starring Alice Eve, received terrible reviews.
Another recent shark-attack movie was “Deep Water,” starring Aaron Eckhart. It involves an international flight that crashes in the Pacific Ocean, and the passengers and crew must work to survive a group of circling sharks. Released on May 1, the film received mildly positive reviews from critics.
Coming soon are “The Devil’s Mouth” and “The Bay,” both of which feature sharks attacking tourists in Thailand.
“The Devil’s Mouth” stars Kathryn Newton and Lana Condor and is set for release on Amazon Prime Video on July 29.
“The Bay” stars Francesca Eastwood and is due for release on July 17 in select theaters and on digital video on demand.
Next year will seen the release on Netflix of “Under Paris 2,” the sequel to “Under Paris” (2024), which featured a giant shark in the Seine. Yeah, totally believable.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Monday, June 29, 2026

AI-generated fake movie stills infuriate


Just as frustrating as the proliferation online of AI-generated fake movie posters are social media posts with photos purporting to be from new movies. They usually come with teases to the effect of “You’ve got to see this movie. It’s incredible.”
But they offer no details. No title. No release information. Nothing. It’s all one big infuriating tease.
Some photos are obviously fake. One still showed a female sniper with two right hands. (See above.) Generative AI now tends to make dumb mistakes like that. But the technology is improving, and it will get harder to tell the truth from the lies.
What follows are some recent phony movie stills posted on X. Be sure to mute those X users who do this so they don’t show up in your feed again.





Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Sunday, June 28, 2026

Fake movies competing with real movies for attention online


I used to rely on suggestions from social media for new movies to watch, but lately X, formerly known as Twitter, has been awash in posts promoting fake movies using AI-created posters and photos.
At first glance, some look compelling. But you soon realize that you’ve been duped. Others with A-list actors are obvious fakes.
The situation is as bad as the numerous online photos of sexy women at FIFA games that turned out to be AI frauds.
Some of these phony movies are fan fiction or wishful thinking as far as casting. But the people who post them don’t usually say that and present them as if they are real. They likely post them to generate user engagement through clickbait.
The worst offender is an account called Movies House (@luther_181). I have muted them and suggest you do too. In fact, I mute all accounts that post this garbage.

Photo: Fake movie poster for “Vis A Vis” with images of actors Jason Statham, Dwyane Johnson and Angelina Jolie.











Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Friday, June 19, 2026

AI-created fake photos of FIFA World Cup fans show a growing problem


Lately I’ve seen a flood of photos on social media platform X that purport to show beautiful female fans of national teams participating in the FIFA World Cup. But many of them are fakes created by generative artificial intelligence applications. And it’s getting hard to tell the real ones from the fakes.
Thankfully some X users do the research and flag the fantasy photos with Community Notes. They point out flaws in the photos such as digital artifacts that are telltale signs of AI. But these fakes will only get better, making it harder to discern the truth from falsehoods.
I appreciate it when some posters add labels to mark their photos or videos as AI-created. But not all netizens are good actors.
And this is just sports and entertainment, fake photos will be a bigger problem in news and politics. One recent post contained an AI-altered photo that showed an event at the White House that didn’t occur. Expect more of this as AI develops.

Photo at top: AI-generated photo of a sexy FIFA fan posted multiple times on X.

Related articles:

World Cup ‘supporter’ goes viral as AI image leaves fans duped (News.com.au; June 14, 2026)

Is she real? USA World Cup fan in tiny bikini goes massively viral (Mundo Deportivo; June 13, 2026)











Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Sunday, June 14, 2026

Kylie Minogue should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame


The Netflix documentary series “Kylie” provides compelling evidence that Australian pop music superstar Kylie Minogue needs to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The fact that she has never been nominated is a disgrace. The longevity of her career, her reinventions, her chart-topping hits and sold-out concerts to this day are all factors in her favor. The three-part Netflix series also shows the personal and professional challenges she has faced and overcome.
Australia has been a noticeable blind spot for the Rock Hall. The only Aussie acts in the hall are AC/DC and the Bee Gees.
Aussie snubs include Minogue, INXS (nominated for the first time this year), Midnight Oil, Crowded House and Nick Cave.
Next year would be a perfect time to induct Minogue as she reportedly will be on another world tour.
Kylie is an icon who deserves to be in the Rock Hall before a raft of other female solo artists.
The 2026 Netflix docuseries “Kylie” and concert film from her Tension tour “Kylie: Tension Tour Live” hopefully will give Minogue an exposure lift to hall voters.
Put her name on the nomination ballot and she will lead the fan poll. I’m sure of it.

Related articles:

Kylie Minogue and the Art of Staying a Mega-Famous Pop Star Forever (Rolling Stone; June 5, 2026)

Kylie Minogue Confirms 40th Anniversary Tour Plans: ‘I’m Probably Not Meant to Say This, But Yes’ (Billboard; May 17, 2026)

Photos: “Kylie” docuseries poster and photos from the premiere. (Netflix)


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Sunday, June 7, 2026

AI summaries are taking oxygen from news publishers


Artificial intelligence summaries from the likes of Google Gemini are very enticing. Who needs to scour an article for a fact or information when Google can just pull it out and present it to you?
But fewer visits to news publishers’ websites mean less advertising revenue for those companies. That threatens their business and the journalism they create.
"The open web is on its way out. With AI, Google is reducing everyone to raw data providers,” Richard Kramer, a financial analyst with Arete Research, said in a New York Times article.
Google announced its latest search changes on May 19 at its Google I/O conference. It called the changes its “biggest upgrade in over 25 years.”
“Google’s AI search tools may genuinely improve usability, but they also fundamentally reshape the web ecosystem Google originally helped build,” Techradar contributing writer Eric Hal Schwartz said in a news post. “Publishers, creators, and websites increasingly worry that conversational AI answers reduce incentives for users to click through to original sources.”
TechCrunch writer Sarah Perez summed it up by writing, “The era of the ‘ten blue links’ is officially over.”
She added, “The links, to clarify, have not entirely disappeared; they are just no longer the priority for many types of searches.”
The big news publishers have been able to extract licensing fees from Google and other AI firms for scraping their content, but the little guys are largely on the outs.

Related articles:

Journalism job cuts in 2026 tracked (Press Gazette)

New York Times chief: How and why publishers should fight AI ‘tsunami’ (Press Gazette; June 2, 2026)

New York Times Publisher Warns That AI Companies Are Making Choices That ‘Violate Settled Law’ and Could Cause a ‘Great Deal of Unnecessary Harm’ (Variety; June 1, 2026)

News Corp CEO Robert Thomson warns AI companies scraping without paying: ‘We’re coming for you’ (Press Gazette; March 4, 2026)

News Corp, Meta in AI Content Licensing Deal Worth Up to $50 Million a Year (Wall Street Journal; March 3, 2026)

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)